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Sebastian Reed
Personality Sebastian is a wanderer by nature. The prince of the highway. The world is his backyard. Often, this is out of the nature of his race, other times it’s out of necessity. He’s suave, smooth and oozes self-confidence and a feline sensuality. And he is more than aware of his sex appeal. Because it gets him into /so/ much trouble. It also gets him /out/ of trouble, but mostly the other way. His temper doesn’t help much, either. It seems to take a bit before it flares up, but when it hits, it’s rather explosive. And there is that dangerous element to him, the effects of the Rage bubbling just under the surface. But he’s a decent fellow under all that, likes to help out where he can. He’s been around the block a few times, and likes to believe there is wisdom in experience, although asking him what he learned from any given experience will likely get you a less than impressive answer. He solves many problems with his fists, and feels most comfortable among the streetrats, or on the road moving on to the next town. Although, that’s usually only after the current town runs him out. Sheet Attributes Willpower: 7, Gnosis 2, Rage 5 Strength: 4, Dexterity: 3, Stamina: 3 Charisma: 3, Manipulation: 2, Appearance: 5 Perception: 2, Intelligence: 2, Wits: 3 Abilities ; Talents :Athletics 2 :Brawl 4 :Empathy 2 :Integrity 3 :Intimidation 3 :Persuasion 1 :Primal Urge 2 :Streetwise 2 :Vigilance 2 ; Skills :Larceny 3 :Leadership 2 :Marksmanship (Pistols) 3 :Stealth 3 :Survival 2 ; Knowledges :Enigmas 1 :Finance 2 :Law 1 :Medicine 1 ;Specialties *Brawl Specialty: Fisticuffs *Strength Specialty: Long Jumping *Appearance Specialty: Sex Appeal Backgrounds *Fetish 3 ;Lady Luck (Level 3, Gnosis 4) :This fetish was created by a down-on-his-luck Bastet who unwisely set out to sea during the days of pirates and naval explorations. On those churning waters and riotous ports, the creator learned of a popular game played among many involving "bones" or dice and he learned the secrets of winners - rather, cheaters. Determined to seek his own fast fortunes and reputation, he bound the spirits of "Gambler's Bug" (one named "Risk" and the other "Reward") to a pair of old bone-carved dice, promising them that together, they could make their own luck. Though the creator eventually lost his life in an unfortunate case of accusation of cheating that brought fatal retribution down upon him, the dice have survived to find their way to other skilled hands. :*System: The user of the fetish activates it with a point of Gnosis as he clutches any mundane die to the fetish, allowing the fetish dice to take on the form of the dice. Afterwards, the user finds a female to blow upon the dice, thereby activating the "Gambling Bug" spirits bound within. The user rolls the dice, which will roll to whatever results the user desires, good or bad. The effects last for one scene. ::* If the user does not find a female to blow upon the dice before rolling, the angered Gambling Bug spirits will likely roll to an outcome that makes the user lose his fortunes. To avoid this, roll user's Gnosis at difficulty 9. One success is needed to avoid this terrible outcome. *Resources 1 :Sebastian gambles. It’s how he gets money in his pocket and gets himself out of trouble. Lady Luck has a lot to do with it, as Craps is his favorite game. But, he likes poker and roulette and blackjack and slots... just those are less of a guarantee for him to actually get any money from. A lot of cash passes through Sebastian’s hands on its way to recirculation, but he only ever retains a little bit. Such is the fate of a gambler. *Kinfolk 1 :Some guys leave a girl in every port. And... Sebastian probably does, also. But there are two that he is particularly attached to, because they’re Bastet Kin. Ione Hayner is a thirty-two year old Concierge Doctor to the rich and Wealthy in Scottsdale, AZ. She has one child by Sebastian, a three year old kinfolk daughter named Dionne. The second Kin is a very different sort of female relationship, as she is Sebastian’s mother. Velma Reed, living currently in San Diego, CA, works as a teacher at a private elementary school. Gifts & Rites ;Gifts :Rank One: Submit, Sweet Hunter's Smile, Silent Stalking, Razor Claws :Rank Two: Armor of Kings, Spirit of the Fray :Rank Three: Ignore Pain, Purr Merits & Flaws ;Merits *Danger Sense 2 :Sebastian’s just been in too much trouble in his life not to sense it coming. *Poison Resistance 1 :Over the years, Sebastian was able to train his body to resist toxins and poisons. *Underworld Ties 3 :Through his sheer amount of time in casinos and floating crap games and the like, he’s met, lost money to and won money from various unsavory figures. Some of them have come to respect him, to a degree. ;Flaws *Compulsion 1 :Sebastian cannot resist helping a damsel in distress. He’ll do his best to lend a hand and help her out, even if it gets him even deeper into trouble than usual. Renown *Cleverness: 3/0 *Ferocity: 7/0 *Honor: 5/0 History I’m sitting in a basement under a club in Vegas. Actually ‘sitting’ isn’t accurate. I’m laying sort of crunched up against one wall, my face is bleeding – of /course/ they went for the face first – and I’m pretty sure there’s some internal bleeding going on from a few kicks they gave me while I’ve been down. It’s a great trick, making them think you’re a lot weaker than you are. Of course, a broken rib is still a broken rib, no matter /who/ you are. These little minions aren’t who I’m after, though. There’s a man here, servant of the Unmaker. I’m about seventy percent sure he’s here, anyway. Although, the more these guys kick me, the more sure I get. Just have to piss them off enough to get him down here. Times like this, I think about Trudy. She’s up there in the club somewhere, probably getting into trouble, too. It’s a little like having your kid sister tagging along. If your kid sister is seriously kick ass. Don’t tell her I said that. Anyways, so imagine you’re in some dangerous place, and you know it’s dangerous, and you see your kid sister walk in the door. At that moment, you want nothing more than to take that danger by the throat, slam it against a wall and tell it to show the lady some fucking /respect/. Of course, times like these, I /should/ be thinking about how the hell I’m going to get out of this one. But, as much trouble as I get into... I don’t think I’ve /ever/ thought about that... When you’re a good lookin’ kid, it gets you /out/ of a lot of trouble. You flash a little smile, look a little sheepish and they hand you a lollipop instead of a punishment and tell you how you’re gonna break so many hearts one of these days. It gives you a completely skewed outlook on life that’ll get /shattered/ if you make it past your teen years. Growing up, I was a good lookin’ kid. We lived right on the beach down in sunny SoCal. Surfed a lot. I don’t think I ever wore an actual pair of shoes. Ate at the local crab shack everyday after school... It was just me and mom in those days. Dad was who know where, doing who knows what – although, I guess I got a pretty good idea about that these days – and would send mom a nice stack of greenbacks every month like clockwork. Most women left jilted by their husbands or boyfriends or lovers, they got nothing nice to say about ‘em at all, but mom never had a bad word to say about my dad. I guess I learned from him, even without him being there, that if you leave ‘em happy enough, they’ll always remember you kindly. I never liked being in one place too long and I never much made any real close friends. Too distant, is what my school psychologist said. But I was happy enough, what did I care? I had a few girls here and there, had my surfing, had decent grades, and had my freedom... /Freedom/ would be a nice thing right about now. Just gotta be patient about it, is all. They’re tying me to this /real/ uncomfortable metal chair. Using rope, like I haven’t ever gotten into this /same/ position a million times before. They keep hitting me and I just keep smiling at them. Smiling and making a few pointed, sarcastic comments... one of ‘em /really/ doesn’t like me talking about his wife. The way these guys work is like this. They scare off the trouble that’s easy to scare. Show them you’re /not/ easy to scare and you’ve got their attention. This is always painful. Now, some of us lucky folk know a secret or two about boosting your pain tolerance, but you don’t always want them to think you’re /too/ good. Then you’ll /never/ see their boss. The boss comes in when I’ve shown them they’re not gonna break me, but that I’ve /got/ a breaking point. And they’re feeling /just/ sadistic enough to want to see what creativity the boss has in store for their troublemaker. And you don’t get to be the boss if you aren’t creative. She always said that was one of my biggest problems. Too ready to use the fists, no other ideas coming to mind. Actually, she said it more like ‘Sebastian, why are you so /stupid/ all the time!’ in this exasperated tone. I’m pretty sure she was just trying to piss me off enough to try to better myself just to prove her wrong. She did shit like that a lot. It was /the/ most frustrating year of my life, from the moment she showed up. It was a constant stream of surprise lessons and advice cloaked in riddle. And riddles cloaked in lessons. And surprise... cloaked in a... well, you get the point. Mom didn’t prepare me for what was coming, although I knew /something/ was on its way when I started feeling so antsy. I was in my mid-teens, though, it was /normal/ to be surly. Christiana showed up one day and just started pissing me off. She’d tease and poke and prod and shove and smack until I was ready to bite her. Couldn’t bite her, though, not a lady. Even then, couldn’t hit a girl. It just ain’t /right/. She was able to yank the cat out of me, though. She broke my board. Now, I know, I know, doesn’t sound like much of a thing. But imagine weeks of harassment, /non/-stop, and then you’re just heading out to the beach to relax and get your mind off it and there she comes. No one was really around, being the middle of the night and the beach being closed, but there she came. She pushed me down and started kicking the /crap/ out of me. She just would /not/ stop. I kept telling her to cut it out, cut it out, but she wouldn’t let up. And then she yanked my board out of my arms and slammed it against the pillars under the pier. I lost it. Lost it and found a whole new... life... I’m a believer in new starts. It’s why I don’t kill the minions. Maybe they’ll learn something and decide this whole life of villainy ain’t for them. If not, I’ll find them again, sucklin’ from the teat of another filthy bastard. I like to think of myself has a vigilante-slash-Robin Hood sort of guy. I hunt out the Sheriff-of-Nottinghams and the Prince-Johns and see about knocking ‘em down a few pegs. That’s all, really. Sometimes ‘a few pegs’ knocks them six feet under, but don’t cry too hard for them. If they ain’t bathing in the Unmaker, they’re well on their way to it. Just call me a civil servant. When the boss walks in, I can tell from the first look that he’s an utter bastard. Makes me snarl just lookin’ at ‘im. The minions think that’s funny. I hear them sniggering off to the side. Sadly for them, I know a thing or two about getting out of ropes, so when their boss walks over in his Armani suit and his fancy cuff links and his Italian shoes and gets in my face, I’ve already got an arm free to grab him by the throat. That’s when the guns come out and /that’s/ when I start ignoring the pain. Now they can think I’m unstoppable, they can think that all they want. I learned this trick about letting them underestimate you after Christiana left me. She just up and left; no word, no note, no goodbye. I didn’t cry. I was pretty pissed, though. When I left mom, I did cry a little, I’m not ashamed to admit it. She knew it was coming. She’d known that whole year it was coming. I guess she told my dad, because he’d sent her a present to give me, something his dad gave him, the note said, to help him along. And now he was giving it to me. Lady Luck. Mom helped me pack up what I could fit in a back pack and kissed my forehead and tried not to cry when I walked out the door, but I could hear her sobbin’ from inside. That woman cryin’... I ain’t never been able to handle it. I never told mom what I went to do. I was something like sixteen, but sort of big for my age and pretty strong just naturally. When I entered the realm of underground cagematches, I thought I was perfect for the gig. I learned pretty quick that I had a long way to go. I guess I sort of got my mind set on those fights, lost focus on the bigger picture. Rookie mistake. Two years I fought in those fights, got myself tougher, stronger. Unafraid. I also picked up gambling in those years and found of just what Lady Luck was able to do. Wasn’t long before I was sending stacks of cash back to mom, too. My wayward teacher showed up in my little ramshackle room I stayed in, and greeted me with a smack. She was always trying to bait me into hitting her. I never did, though. I did demand to know what the hell she was doing there and what did she think gave her the right to appear and disappear in my life like that. She didn’t answer that second part, but she told me I was ‘squandering my potential’ and told me to get back to work. And she wouldn’t always be able to drop everything and come set me back on track. What that track was? She never once said. She just talked a lot about my duty and potential. That's pretty much all she /ever/ talks to me about when she shows up. We're Simba, we're leaders, we're /kings/ and Sebastian is gambling, drinking, and brawling to pass the time. She likes her speeches, that's for damn sure. Yeah, well. This is /my/ track and I found it without her guidance. I imagine that pisses her off. And where has that track led me? To a hand holding a sorry piece of meat up against a wall by his throat. His minions have stopped shooting now. I’m bleeding, I know. I wonder if I’ll be able to walk out of here. What with the blood loss. I can feel it running down my skin and soaking my clothes. Just another Friday. /Is/ it Friday? Maybe it’s Saturday. Whatever. We can feel the music from the club overhead pounding through the floor and down to us through the walls, resonating through the room. It would make for great background music, if they’d play something other than Britney Spears. That sort of cramps my style. But hell, not by much, but style’s pretty damn solid. She left me again, of course, as always. And I started looking around at the people I was associating with. I’ve never been able to sense the Unmaker, but if you pay attention, you can tell who’s deep in it. Of course, when the Unmaker’s twisted their bodies along with their minds, it gets a lot easier. I started traveling the States, making sort of a name for myself as a guy who gets things done. Things that need a pair of fists to solve. Or maybe some claws. This got me into... a lot of trouble. And, I’m sad to say, a handsome grin never did get me out of any of it. And, truth be told, I don’t /always/ go looking for trouble. It comes to me, too. You do not want to know how many times some guy has taken offense because his girl as looked a little too long or... conveniently forgotten he existed while I’m around. Look, it isn’t my fault if these women never mention they’ve got a guy and bring me home. Or find us a place in a dark alley or back hall. It’s always the women, though, that get me into the most trouble. Sometimes for looking at me too long and sometimes for looking at me too long with a pair of soft, pleading, sorrowful eyes and tellin’ me all about her troubles and I just get filled with the urge to save the d- Witchcraft. That’s what it is. Trudy keeps /saying/ that women don’t have some universal witchcraft, but then, that’s just what a practitioner of said witchcraft /would/ say. One such witch, beautiful Ione from Phoenix... if I understand love at all, I think I might love her. She’s had my daughter, the only offspring I have. That I know of. She’s a doctor and just... Well, I couldn’t hang around her too long, being the rough, rougish scallywag that I am and her being a highborn lady of quality... she was always better off without me hanging around. But she carries my heart with her, if anyone does. Her and little Dionne. Mom says she goes to see them now and then. Some.... someday I’ll go meet Dionne. I just don’t know if it’ll be as her father or as... just some passerby. Ione does send me pictures, sometimes. She really is beautiful. They both are. The good thing about all this trouble is it gave me a /lot/ of braggin’ rights. And braggin’ rights is what gets you places, when you’re Bastet like me. I spend a couple years after those cage fights just... spreading the word, ya know? We gather up every so often, I talk myself up, we gather again, I talk a little more and eventually, bam, everybody knows your name and they promote you. Granted, heh heh, at that time, there was a /lot/ of embellishment. But! That’s all part of the game. Life’s not just a game, though. Even a rogue like me can acknowledge that. Like now, standing over a dead body, looking over at his follower who look like they don’t know if they should attack or run. And just when they decide to attack, in waltzes none other than my kid sister. Trudy, who is actually a few years older than me. I think. I never ask a lady her age. And /that/ policy has brought its own fair share of trouble. Trudy. She was a damsel in distress that just wouldn’t let go. Like a permanent damsel in distress. Every time I try to go my own way, there she is getting herself dragged off somewhere, or thrown in jail or tied up on the metaphorical railroad tracks. Why me? I’m a loner! A wanderer! The stars are my companions and the road... my... com- You know what I mean! And yet, from that night I saved her from those mafia types dangling her off the side of a high rise... here we’ve been, dragging each other into trouble. She drags me more, no matter /what/ she tells you. Her damn curiosi- she can’t leave anything /alone/, for the love of the mother. But, she gets me out of my trouble, and hers, too. There’s not a person I’d trust more at my back that that girl. Woman. Kitten. Kitty-Cat. Okay, she’d hit me for those... heh. She and I have hunted down the Unmaker’s servants and taken them out one by one. She’s sharp as a tack and I’m... good at brute force. I kept on with those underground brawls, and with the gambling. And let me tell you... some people really do not like to lose their money. Or their women. Or seeing their women blow on a guy’s dice just before he /takes/ all their money. Life’s been one fight after another. One adventure after another. One excitement, one race, one horror, one nightmare. She took the third rank first, but then she’s always been a little flashier than me. And, of course, it is because of her I’ve gotten in all this world traveling! She’s carted me from Mexico to England to Poland to god knows where. I couldn’t speak the languages, but I got on alright. Dice are dice. Money is money. Women... are women, no matter where you go. I acted as her ‘bodyguard’, mostly. Did a lot of intimidating looks as she went about her business collecting secrets and whatnot and then I went about /my/ business collecting trophies. Unmaker, money... trysts. It wasn’t too long ago that my name... Gravedancer, by the way. Or, He Dances On The Grave Of His Enemies With A Smile On His Face. If you like the long version. Gravedancer is known, worldwide I’d like to say, as the one who knows how to get things /done/. And I get them done. And it’s /that/ reputation that got me the third rank. When Trudy and I were in Japan at a Taghairm there, I was asked to help the host out some. Clearing out some seriously bad children of the Unmaker from his land. Turns out, they took his daughter. Sweet girl, about eight, did not deserve to know that nightmares walk the earth. I was handed rank three when I passed his daughter back to him, unscathed. We /all/ danced over those graves, let me tell you, in celebration. I’m not sure how Trudy got me out of there, didn’t shift before I passed out, but I woke up on my bed in our hotel room with her looming over me. She wasn’t happy. I ruined her whole Saturday night. Ah ha. So it /was/ Saturday. In any case, I promised her we’d go someplace relaxing. No trouble, just a nice, quiet vacation! I even let her pick the place. Crystal Springs. She got this... twinkle in her eye when she said that. I’m going to try not to worry about that... Miscellaneous Form Statistics Friends and Acquaintances *Trudy Riddle - Somewhat reluctant traveling companion and comrade at arms. Category:Past PCs